//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Real Me // by TheNewYorkBrony //------------------------------// Rainbow had never really thought about who she was. She knew who she was in theory. She was Rainbow Dash, the fearless, cunning Element of Loyalty. And yet....she didn't feel like herself. Like something was missing. But she couldn't really quite put her finger on it. When she was thirteen, she discovered she liked girls. She identified as bi for a few years, and when she was sixteen, she realized she was pansexual and polyamorous. But she still felt like she was missing something. And then during one late night phone call, while Pinkie was talking about genders to her, she began to remember all the times when she was younger that she said she hated being a girl. And all the times she said she was anything but a girl. She told Pinkie how she was feeling, and the party planner suggested that she was demigirl. After reading so many articles that it made her head spin, she decided that maybe she was right. But she was scared. Everything was so new to her. The only people who knew about her predicament were Pinkie and Rarity. "So, what exactly do you want us to call you, darling?" Rarity asked, putting a comforting hand on her thigh. "I'm not really sure yet..." She mused. "I really like male pronouns, but I've been called a she all my life." Rainbow shrugged. "Either can do, but he/him should be more common." Pinkie clapped her hands. "Oh! This is just like having a guy in the group! Except you don't for sure identify as a guy and you aren't really transitioning!" Rarity sighed. "Yes, this is very nice. Though I do wonder how the others will take it since they have no idea how these kinds of things work." She reasoned, examining her nails. "Especially poor Applejack. The girl doesn't know the first thing about gender." "I could teach her!" Pinkie volunteered. "I could teach them all! I know lots of stuff about gender!" "Well it can't be that hard to explain to them." Rainbow responded. "Even if they're cis." "And me! I'm cis too!" Pinkie insisted, raising her hand. "Yes, you too, Pinkie," Rarity added with a faint smile. "Ooh!" Pinkie squealed as an idea came to her. "How about we throw you a party! But not a party party, a party with just the six of us! That way it'll be all happy when you tell them and we'll all be together!" Rainbow smiled. "That's a great idea, Pinkie!" She said, high fiving the shorter girl. "Erm, what exactly should we be calling this little, soirée? We can't make it too obvious that Rainbow has big news to share." Rarity reminded them. Pinkie hummed in thought before slamming her fist in her other hand. "How about 'Rainbow's Bash'?!" She suggested. "It's just vague enough to let them be shocked when you tell them!" Rainbow smiled nervously. “Yeah. Sounds great.” She agreed faintly. Later that night the girls gathered at Sugarcube Corner. They talked and laughed, catching up with each other. The whole time Rainbow felt a growing knot in her stomach. She knew it was silly to feel nervous, but everything was still so new to her and she still didn't really know how to feel about it. "Hey...Pinkie...can we talk for a sec?" She asked her as she put down her cup of soda. "Sure!" Pinkie bubbled, turning to her. "What's up?" "Um, I meant somewhere private." Rainbow said faintly. "Oh! Okay!" The shorter girl grabbed her arm and lead her upstairs and into her room. She shut the door for good measure. "Okay. Now what's got my Dashie so down?" She pushed. Rainbow sighed, sitting down on Pinkie's bed. "I'm not sure I can do this." She confessed, rubbing her arms. "Of course you can! You're Rainbow Dash remember?! The toughest gir- Oops, the toughest guy I know! You have all the support you need! Plus, they're your friends! You know that Twilight and the others would do anything for you!" "It's not Twilight and Fluttershy I'm worried about..." Rainbow muttered. Pinkie's expression fell. "Oh," She said, finally understanding. "Applejack. Right." She knew that the girl wasn't exactly hostile with things like this, but her upbringing made her a lot less willing to understand. "Applejack is going to be blunt. It's her thing." Rainbow told her. "And if I go down there and say what I have to say, I know she's going to say something bad." "How do you know?" Pinkie chirped. "Huh?" "You said you know it's going to be her to specifically say something mean, but how do you know?" Pinkie looked at her beaming with an expectant expression. "Because her family is really homophobic and stuff. You do remember that, right?" Rainbow asked her, giving her a confused look. "Yes. But that's her family. Not her. I mean come on if she was really anything like her family would she be here, downstairs, partying with us right now? Would she have become friends with us in the first place?" Rainbow suddenly felt guilty for doubting her friend. "No..." She murmured. "I guess not..." Pinkie put a hand on her shoulder and smiled warmly. "If you're not ready to come out to them, then that's fine. There's always gonna be another day. Me and Rarebear aren't going to make you do it." She poked at Dash's chest. "You have to want to make you do it. Understand?" Rainbow nodded, feeling better. "Yeah. I got it." She smiled. "Thanks, Pinkie." "Oh yeah, any time!" Pinkie giggled, modestly waving her gratitude off. She pulled the taller girl off the bed and pushed her out the door. "Now go give it your best shot!" The world slowed as Rainbow made her way downstairs. The only thing that reassured her was to hear Pinkie bouncing down behind her. She took deep, shallow breaths until she reached the bottom of the steps. Pinkie stepped in front of her and went to turn her ipod dock off, making the rest if the girls look up at her. "Okay girls!" She announced, clapping her hands together, "Rainbow has something very important to say to all of us!" She nodded at Rainbow, giving her the floor. Rainbow gulped as everyone's head turned to her. "Um...well..." She started. "It's kind of complicated..." "Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll be able to understand." Twilight assured her. Rainbow nodded. "Right. Well. I was on the phone a few nights ago with Pinkie and she was talking about genders and stuff and I started remembering all this stuff from when I was a kid and...uh...well I found out I'm not a girl." "What?!" Applejack barked incredulously. Rarity smacked her arm immediately, glaring at her. "Go on dear, continue." The seamstress coaxed, encouragingly. Rainbow sighed. "I would like it if you guys started calling me 'he' instead of 'she'." He said, sheepishly looking at the girls in front of him. Fluttershy tilted her head. "Oh my....I'm not really sure what to make of this..." she whispered. "I honestly don't quite know how to either." Twilight responded. "Rainbow....are you sure that this is what you want?" She asked, turning back to him. Rainbow nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure." "Ya can't just wake up one day and decide you're a boy, Rainbow Dash." Applejack said in disgust. "Applejack!" Rarity shouted at her appalled. Applejack snapped her head in her direction. "Don't you 'Applejack' me! It ain't natural!" She pointed to Rainbow. "That ain't natural!" "Thanks for the support, you prick!" Rainbow shouted, stomping his foot. Tears swelled in his eyes. "I knew this was a mistake! I should have never thought that you of all people would understand!" "Ya damn right it was a mistake!" The farm girl shouted back. "You're crazy of you believe that Ah'm just gonna up and call you a boy when you're clearly a girl!" "Applejack that's enough!" Pinkie shouted in a tone no one heard her use before. Everyone turned to her in shock. "Rainbow was unsure to tell you guys because of you. He was scared because he knew you would say something rude! And I thought that you had changed! I thought that maybe, just maybe you could be accepting for once!" Pinkie clenched her fists. "I guess when you put make-up on a pig, it's still a pig." Applejack stood up and stormed out, the front door rattling from the force of her slamming it shut. Twilight looked around the room wide eyed. "Woah." She breathed. "I'm just as shocked as you are." Fluttershy confessed, fiddling with her hair. "Oh my. What just happened?" "We just lost a friend, that's what just happened." Pinkie mumbled in anger. "Hey now, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I'll admit what Applejack said was wrong and disrespectful, but we can't just outright shun her. We wouldn't be the elements of Harmony then, now would we?" Twilight reasoned. "Someone sure stayed true to her element. Even being brutally honest when she could have just fucking lied." Rainbow said, gritting his teeth. "Rainbow, darling, you know what Applejack's situation is." Rarity reminded him. "I agree with Twilight. She was completely heartless, and I can't excuse that, but her family is the reason why she's so....demeaning." "She called me a 'that'! A 'that'! Do you know what you call 'that'?! Unidentified things! That is a word you use when you don't know what something is! She basically looked at me like I was some alien or something!" Rainbow shouted, his voice cracking. "Like...like I'm some kind of abomination. Like I don't belong..." And as much as he didn't want to, Rainbow began to cry. "Oh dear..." Fluttershy whispered with her hands to her mouth. Twilight shook her head. "We have to talk to her. She has to apologize." She stood up and walked over to Rainbow, who accepted the hug she offered. Twilight swallowed a lump in her throat as she felt the boy crying on her shoulder. "My family is Amish," Pinkie whispered. Everyone turned to her to see if she would continue. "They think being anything but straight is a sin. My father," She took a shaky breath, "My father used to beat me as my sisters watched because he thought it was unnatural that I liked girls." She gripped at the side of the table she was leaning against hard. "Sometimes he would beat me until I couldn't move. And my mother did nothing. Nothing. The only person who stood up for me was Maud." The room was solemnly silent. "And yet, it didn't change me. I still like girls. I still like anyone that I want to like. Because I know I am my own person, that I have my own goddamn mind." Pinkie's tone got dangerously deep. "Applejack may have had an ignorant upbringing, but she still is at fault for not at least trying." Twilight whistled. "She has a very good point." “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Dash muttered. “I knew I should have just kept my fucking mouth shut.” He ran out of Sugarcube Corner without another word. “Rainbow wait!” The girls called after him, but he was long gone.